


Paper Walls

by Deadlihood



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Fluff, M/M, mention of fanxing, seriously this is all cotton candy fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:24:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7709662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deadlihood/pseuds/Deadlihood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luhan's building was made with paper walls, making it all too easy to listen in on the guy next door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paper Walls

Luhan was used to this by now. The walls in his apartment building were about as thick as construction paper, and his neighbor got laid a lot. He wouldn’t have minded if their beds didn’t rest against the same wall, and he was a little quieter about it. At least he never brought anyone home after midnight. Based on the noise on the other side of the wall, he had to get up early for work too so the sex was always early in the night.

Early enough that Luhan didn’t mind taking his book out onto the balcony to read. The evening had finally cooled down, making it feel less like he was actually cooking in his own skin. As he stepped out onto the cooling tiles of the balcony, he felt something small and furry brush against his bare calf.

“You wanted to come outside too, Raja?” Luhan scooped his cat up, nuzzling her little head. Raja meowed loudly in response; she’d always been something of a squeaky toy. He let her go sniff around the corner of the balcony while he kicked his feet up on the railing, settling into his favorite chair to return to his book. One finger twisted a lock of hair idly as he sank back into the book.

Then, like clockwork, the meowing started. Raja and the cat that belonged to Mr. Other Side were having some kind of Romeo and Juliet romance from their respective balconies. Both of them were screened in, preventing them from jumping over and visiting with each other. It was just as well; Luhan didn’t particularly want that massive tom cat coming over to hump at his runt-of-the-litter Raja. At least, he thought it was a tom cat. For all he knew, Raja was having a lesbian romance. He practically snorted water out his nose when he thought about all the connotations eating pussy could take when it came to actual cats.

“Bagheera, would you cut it out?” Mr. Other Side’s voice called from inside the apartment. Luhan had to stifle a chuckle; he and his neighbor both had cats named after Disney animals. If he was yelling, that probably meant that he was done getting laid and it was safe to return to the bedroom. He was already starting to droop and it was barely ten o’clock. But having a six am wake up time and teaching two or three classes a day could be draining.

Still, he went about what he liked to call his seventeen things he had to do before he went to bed. He checked the locks on the front door, made sure Raja was watered and fed, made sure the alarm clock was set, bruhed his teeth, took out his lenses. Then he sat down and did a few calming poses, focusing on his breathing.

At least, he was until he heard voices on the other side of the wall again. He sighed, getting up to press his ear to the wall. They were making an active attempt to keep their voices down, which he appreciated, but he could still hear them. They’d made this apartment building out of the cheapest shit possible.

“…can’t believe you’re doing this again.” Mr. Other Side was saying, a definite note of pain in his voice.

“What do you expect from me? You knew how I was before you started this.” Another voice said. Male. Sometimes he brought home women, sometimes men, sometimes voices he couldn’t identify.

“Before _I_ started this? I seem to remember you sticking your hand down _my_ pants first.” He scoffed. “Fine. Go ahead and leave if that’s what you want. But you walk out that door and you don’t come back in.”

“That is perfectly fine by me.” There were footsteps and then the front door of his apartment slammed. There was a beat of silence, and then he heard a broken sob on the other side of the wall. His heart twisted in his chest. The bedsprings squeaked, he assumed he had gotten back on, and the crying started in earnest.

He listened for maybe five minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore. He reached out, hesitating, and then tapped on the wall dividing them. Mr. Other Side’s breathing hitched in his chest.

“I’m sorry. It’s not my business, but I can’t listen to you cry like this and not want to do something.” Luhan said, pressing closer to the wall. “Are you okay?”

“No.” He sniffled. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Not much. I wasn’t in the room.”

He blew his nose hard, a wet sound coming from his throat as he tried to clear it. “I’m pretty sure I just got broken up with. _Again_.”

“Oh, I’m sorry dude. That sucks.”

“I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t keep doing things that aren’t good for me.”

“You should always do what’s best for yourself, before you start worrying about other people.” He made a soft noise of assent, but continued to cry. “Hey, do you want to try some breathing? It might help you calm down.”

“Breathing? Like meditation shit?”

“I’m a yoga teacher, buddy.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Can you hear me breathe from this side?”

“I can hear your cat sneeze half the time.”

He winced, wondering what else he could hear in his bedroom. “All right, just try to follow the way I’m doing it. When you breathe in, pull it into your chest and when you breathe out, make it like you’re trying to puff your belly out.” He purposefully made his breath louder for the first few counts, and then lowered it so he could hear him. His breathing sounded watery and shaky for the first few minutes, but as they kept it up he seemed to get calmer.

“Thank you.” He said finally. “I’m sorry, I’ve been keeping you up.”

“It’s all right. Probably wasn’t going to fall asleep immediately anyway.”  He paused for a second. “What’s your name? I’ve always just called you Mr. Other Side.”

“Minseok. I call you dude next door, so don’t feel bad.”

“I’m Luhan.”

“Thank you, Luhan.” He tapped out a tune on the wall between them with his knuckles and he finished it off.

“Good night, Minseok.”

“Good night.”

He rolled over onto his belly, feeling terrible for him. Raja jumped up on the bed and curled into his body. Luhan hoped that Bagheera was doing the same for his human, giving him comfort. He was calmer, but he could still hear him tossing and turning on the other side of the wall. He dug his fingers into Raja’s fur, letting the sensation of it and Raja’s rhythmic purring lull him to sleep.

\--

“Great work everyone,” Luhan said, signaling everyone to get up from their Shavasana pose. Maybe he’d let them stay a little longer than normal because he’d worked them a little harder than normal. But he felt the need to push himself a little harder and had taken it out on them. The class got up, chattering amongst themselves as they rolled up their mats. Luhan stayed kneeling on his own, even though he knew there was a Zumba class in this room right after his.

Finally, when his students started filing out and the Zumba people started coming in, he rolled up his mat and headed for the locker room. He stashed the mat inside and pulled his sweater on over his tank top. His next class wasn’t for another two hours, not enough time to go home, but enough time to run some errands. Especially now that he was relaxed and he could drive without actively trying to kill someone.

As he passed through the entry of the gym, he waved to the receptionist, Miranda. She was talking to a short man with the top of his hair pulled into a tiny black bun. Even in his relaxed stance, one foot crossed behind the other and leaning on the desk, Luhan could see how well-muscled he was. He checked him out appreciatively before going out to the parking lot to her car.

Percy, as the car was known to his close friends, rumbled to life, but he sat in the parking space for a moment to let the air conditioning run and pick out a song. A car behind him honked, the driver having been waiting for him to pull out of his spot.

“There’s like five other spots on this row, dumbass.” He muttered to himself, putting the car into reverse to pull out. He managed to restrain himself from flipping the guy off as he drove away, but only barely. His road rage was legendary.

In two hours, Luhan went to the bank, had lunch, mailed a package to his sister, and browsed a little in a popular store downtown. Not that he was in the market for new clothes; he knew himself too well to spend money on something trendy. He wore the same clothes over and over, because once he found something comfortable he didn’t see any need to change things up.

He arrived just in time to catch the guy from before leaving the gym, dressed in street clothes with damp hair. He almost gaped at him when he saw his face; it was physically impossible to have a face that cute and kitten-like on a body like that. They shared a polite smile as they passed each other and then Luhan had to hurry to grab his mat and get to the classroom for his next class.

After a full day of teaching yoga, Luhan was all stretched out and more than a little sleepy. He drove home with one arm resting on the console and the other on the wheel, humming along to the music he was listening to. Everyone he drove with hated that he hummed along instead of singing or just listening, but he couldn’t help it. It was a habit that he didn’t see the point in breaking.

When he got back to his apartment, Raja was lying on the cold tiles of the bathroom, showing just how hot it had gotten in the apartment that day. Luhan always tried to put ice in Raja’s water bowl before he left on really hot days, but he wasn’t sure how else to keep her cool. Thankfully Raja didn’t have long fur and he didn’t have to worry too much.

Luhan dumped more ice in her bowl and gave the cat a hello head rub before stripping off his clothes and getting into the shower. It always felt amazing getting home from work and showering off the day’s worth of sweat. He hummed to himself to the tune of the last song he’d listened to in the car, fingers working over his scalp. He spent more time than was probably necessary under the warm water, just enjoying it pouring over his body and warming his muscles.

Finally he climbed out of the shower and dried his hair into a dark mass around his head. He padded out to the kitchen in only his favorite pair of shorts, which were printed to look like a mermaid’s tail, to make dinner. Raja liked to sit at the edge of the kitchen and watch, meowing occasionally to remind Luhan that she was there. It was the quiet domesticity of the evening that Luhan liked; having dinner and maybe a glass of wine in front of the TV, his cat at his feet purring quietly. Turning on the fan and reading a few chapters of his book. It was part of the reason he liked to live alone so much. The quiet was always welcome.

And it was quiet when he got into bed later. No sex sounds from Mr. Other Side, or Minseok, as he figured he was supposed to call him now. He reached out tentatively, fingers fluttering over the wall. Pulling his hand back, he shook his head. It was silly to check on him like he was his mother. He was a grown ass man, he could take care of himself.

But his own nature made her reach out and rap a simple tune on the wall. There was a beat of silence, and a new tune was played out against the other side.

“How are you today?” He asked.

“Shitty. But I got up and went to work, so that’s something.” He shifted on his bed, moving closer to the wall. “Is this going to become a thing?”

“Um, I mean, it doesn’t have to be.”

“I don’t mind it. Feels kind of like when I was a kid and we’d talk through tin cans on a string.”

“It is kind of like that, yeah.” He fell silent when he heard Bagheera yowl from the balcony and Raja’s ears perked up. “Your cat is trying to impregnate mine.”

“He’s going to have a hard time with that, he’s fixed.”

“So is Raja, but I think they’re in love.”

“One day we’ll arrange a cat playdate so they can finally meet.”

Luhan laughed, rubbing behind Raja’s ears. “One day.”

Minseok yawned and Luhan heard the blankets being pulled up. “I’m gonna try to sleep, I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“I know. I can hear you roll over in bed.”

“God, who built this fucking building? Can’t even sleep in private.”

“I mean, if either of us had decided to move our beds we wouldn’t hear so much.”

“But then we wouldn’t be talking through the wall, would we?”

“Guess not. Night, Minseok.”

“Good night Luhan.” He rolled over and he heard him chuckle, probably because he could hear the bed shift under him. Maybe he could have his private, quiet domesticity, and have a companion close at hand too.

\--

It was Luhan’s day off, and he had slept in until nearly ten am. It felt luxurious and sinful to wake up with the sun already bright outside. Even Raja, the laziest cat in the history of the world, had gotten up from the bed and was lying in a patch of sunlight in the living room.

Preparing for the heat outside, Luhan found a pair of reasonably clean shorts and one of his workout tank tops that didn’t look terrible. Then he lathered himself in sunscreen; his mother had always told him to take care of his skin, and on a day like this, he would instantly turn into dry leather without sunscreen.

With his essentials safely tucked into his pockets and Raja’s bowl filled with ice, he jogged down the stairs to the parking garage under the apartment building. He was glad he hadn’t gone for street parking; the car would have been 100 degrees by now.

The hum low in his throat mirrored the hum of the car as he reversed smoothly and went about his day. He had groceries to buy, laundry to do. He had to take advantage of his days off because he knew he was entirely too lazy to take care of these basic things otherwise. If there was something he hated, it was waiting in line with the rest of the tired people who’d just gotten off work and realized they had to make something for dinner.

So he wandered about the blissfully air conditioned grocery store, slurping on the iced coffee he’d picked up at the café next door, and tried to think healthy. For a yoga teacher, he sure ate a lot of shitty food. Macaroni and cheese was just worth more to him than any of that healthy, wheatgrass, quinoa laden bullshit. There were two other yoga teachers that worked at the gym with him; one taught beginners classes, the other the advanced. The advanced teacher, Mila, had invited him and Jackie over for dinner once and Luhan had regretted it as soon as he heard what was on the menu. There was something to do with edamame hummus and tofu. He’d gone home and scarfed down half a box of cookies just to get rid of the icky feeling in his stomach.

Luhan didn’t know what a picture he made roaming through the aisles. In sneakers, he capped out at 5’10, shorts just a little too short and tight for a straight guy. The sides of his tank top revealed his hard-worked for stomach, the front hanging loosely over his chest. Headphones on, he danced a little down the aisle, humming even as his mouth was wrapped around the straw of his drink. He was getting gawked at by a few teenage boys out of school for the summer and looking for munchies, but he didn’t even notice. He was intent on picking up mac and cheese, the kind with the orange powder dust and no real cheese in it.

He paused in front of the display, wondering if he wanted to be truly ridiculous and get the one with the noodles shaped like Monsters Inc. characters or the regular noodles. As he was deliberating, a hand appeared and took a box off the shelf.

“Oh, sorry.” He said, backing up to give the person a better vantage point. As he turned to look, he realized it was the buff kitten man he’d seen the day before at the gym. He tried not to stare, even though he was staring at him.

“Do we know each other?” He asked, and he took his headphones off.

“I think you work out at the gym I teach at. I think I saw you yesterday.”

He shook his head. “I teach there. Weightlifting. Guess you’re one of my coworkers.”

The voice was familiar, so familiar but he couldn’t place it. He would have remembered a face like his. Unless they’d never met face to face.  “Minseok?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Then his head jerked slightly. “Luhan?”

He started laughing. “Howdy, neighbor. We meet at last.”

“How long have you worked at that gym?”

“Two years, maybe. You?”

“At least that long.” He shook his head. “And I’ve lived in that apartment for three, and I’ve never seen your face.” He held out his hand. “Nice to finally see your face, Luhan.”

“You too.” He shook his hand, wincing when he realized his hand was clammy from holding his drink. “You have a day off too?”

“Yeah, I try to get my groceries done when I don’t have work.”

“Man, how do you teach weightlifting classes and still have the energy for sex?” He wanted to slap himself across the face as soon as he said the words. Instead of looking offended, he just laughed.

“I’ve got the endurance, I guess. What about you, yoga teacher? You so Zen you never need any company?”

“Call me a DIY enthusiast.” He managed to say it with a straight face and got to watch as Minseok’s nose crinkled up and he laughed, showing him a gummy smile. “How the hell do you have that body and this face?” He was wearing a tank top and basketball shorts, showing off his broad shoulders and muscular calves.

“I’m just blessed, I guess.”

“You look like a kitten.” He had those round cat-eyes, and with that delicate nose he looked just like a cat he’d had once.

“What about you? You look like a baby deer and you’re all long and-” He made a gesture at Luhan’s legs, which he was quite proud of. They were long and well-toned, as was most of his body.

“So maybe we’re animals, the both of us. Would explain why our pets are having a Romeo and Juliet romance.”

“Excuse me.” An exasperated voice said behind them. An older woman gestured for Minseok to move his cart out of the way.

“Shit, we’ve been blocking the aisle.” Luhan looked down at the list he’d prepared so he wouldn’t forget any of his groceries. He still had a ways to go before he’d be done.

“We should probably finish up, huh?” Minseok consulted his own list. “Hey, why don’t we do the playdate with Gheera and your cat tonight?”

“Sure, I’ll be home after this. Gotta do laundry.” Minseok made a face. He knew exactly what their laundry facilities looked like.

“Are you going down with a taser? I don’t even feel safe down there.”

“Safety in numbers. We’ll let the cats meet and then we’ll do laundry?”

“Sounds like a plan. See ya at home.” He winked playfully and then continued on his way. Luhan tried to ignore the way his heart had stuttered a little and put his headphones back on. He had groceries to do and an apartment to clean before it was safe for company. Living alone had made him messy and he had a tendency to leave underwear everywhere.

As he suspected, when he got home there was a pair of Spiderman boxers spread out across the floor of his living room. Cursing under his breath, he tossed them back into the hamper and hurried around the apartment to collect anything else that needed to be washed. Then he threw the pillows back into their proper places and hid all the dishes in the kitchen. He didn’t want Minseok’s first impression of his apartment to be that he was a pig.

“You’re gonna get to meet your boyfriend today.” He crooned, picking up Raja to kiss between her ears. Raja meowed in response, probably more to do with the rude awakening than the fact that Bagheera was coming over.

It occurred to him then that Minseok wasn’t even home yet, so he could do more cleaning. He did the dishes quickly and cleared the counters. He had just contemplated vacuuming a little when there was a knock on the front door. He checked through the peephole and saw Minseok standing in the hall, a bag of laundry by his feet and a massive black cat in his arms.

“Hey.” He said when he opened the door, struggling to hold onto Bagheera. “I think he knows why I brought him out.”

“Come in before you get shredded.” Luhan pushed the laundry bag inside after him and shut the door. Bagheera started squalling as soon as he smelled Raja, who was winding around Minseok’s legs. Minseok let Bagheera hit the ground and the cats immediately started sniffing each other, rubbing their faces together.

“That’s a picture.” Minseok said, pulling out his phone to take a photo of the two of them.

“And there’s no danger of them making kittens while we’re downstairs doing laundry.” Luhan eyed his laundry bag and his own hamper. “Uh, do you think we should mix loads?”

He looked at what he was examining and shrugged. “Yeah, might as well save the money. I’ll do the washing, you pay for the drying?”

“Works for me.” They both grabbed their bags and detergent and headed for the elevators. The dark, dank basement housed the laundry facilities. The room was lit with flickering fluorescent lights and the whole room smelled like mold. Luhan had wondered if the health inspector people had ever come down here, and if it was black mold slowly poisoning all of them as they tried to do their laundry.

Quietly, the two of them sorted their clothes into three piles and claimed three washing machines for themselves, starting the loads up. Luhan wished he’d grabbed his sheets to wash as well but he had a feeling they had a cum stain on them from his last “DIY” session and that didn’t seem like a very good first impression to make on his neighbor.

With their laundry churning away in the washing machines, they returned to Luhan’s apartment, where Bagheera and Raja had curled up in a patch of sunshine and were grooming each other.

“God, they’re cute.” Minseok muttered, leaning on the back of the couch to watch them.

“We’re a couple of old cat ladies, you know that?”

“So I named my cat after a panther from _The Jungle Book_. You name yours after the tiger from _Aladdin_?”

“Of course. Best Disney movie there is. And my cat is fucking orange.”

“They look like Halloween in a furry heap.” Minseok laughed. Luhan decided to Snapchat that very thought to Yixing, knowing he’d get a kick out of it.

“Do you want a beer or something?” It was still early-ish in the day, but it was after lunch which meant it was acceptable to have a beer.

“Yeah, sure.”

Luhan pulled two beers out of his fridge, popping them open with the Hawaii themed bottle opener Yixing had brought him after the surf competition he’d been to last year. As he handed the bottle to Minseok, his phone buzzed in his back pocket. Yixing had merely sent a Snapchat back of his face with his thumb up, a wide smile crossing his face. In the back, Luhan was sure he saw Yifan in a wet suit. God, what a couple of beach bums those two were.

“So why the yoga?” Minseok asked when Luhan finally sat down on the couch next to him. “I mean, not to be rude, but it’s not-”

“A typically masculine thing like weightlifting?”

“The other yoga teachers at our gym are chicks.”

“Yeah, they are.” Luhan shrugged. “I blew my knee out really badly in a soccer match in high school. Yoga kind of got me through the recovery. Not a lot of strength training that would be rough on my knee, but it kept me stretched and in shape. I figured I’d enjoy teaching something that worked so well for me.”

“ACL?” Minseok traced the scars criss-crossing Luhan’s knee. Luhan tried not to visibly react at the touch. He wasn’t even doing anything sexy, he scolded himself.

“ACL and the patellar tendon.”

Minseok winced. “Fuck man, what did you do? I was an aggressive soccer player and even I didn’t fuck up my body that badly.”

“I don’t really know how it happened. That whole match is kind of a blur in my memory. The painkillers they put me on ate my brain for a while.” Luhan blinked. “Wait, you played soccer too? How old are you?”

“26.”

“So am I. Where did you go to high school?” Within a couple minutes they realized they’d gone to opposing high schools and played soccer against each other a few times. If Luhan could still play without his knee literally falling off his body, he would have challenged Minseok to another match. He also knew Yixing would probably slit his throat in the hospital if he did.

They’d finished their first round of beers by the time the alarm rang for them to go move the laundry into the dryers. Luhan forked over the quarters to get the machines running, happy to unload his change. Then they returned to his apartment and opened up a couple more beers, growing more comfortable with each other as they did.

They talked about soccer, about the drama at the gym they worked at, about Luhan’s surfer friends and Minseok’s friend Jongdae who was a real-life foghorn. He even played a recording for Luhan to prove it and the sound was so jarring it scared the cats under Luhan’s bed. It took a lot of coaxing and treats to get them back out from under there, especially since Luhan had a tendency to just shove things he didn’t want to deal with under his bed.

“That is an absolute mess. How can you be the Zen Master and have such a messy bed?” Minseok said when they’d finally lured the cats out.

“Just because I’m a yoga teacher doesn’t mean I’m Zen. In fact, Yixing would probably tell you I’m rather high-strung, but that’s just because he spends so much time out on the ocean that he’s super mellow.” Luhan poked Minseok on the cheek. “What about you, baozi? You’ve got puffy cheeks and you teach weightlifting.”

“Baozi? Man, I should power slam you just for that.” Minseok was grinning though, which assured Luhan that it was an empty threat.

The third round of beers came and went and they brought their clothes upstairs to fold. Minseok dug through Luhan’s freezer and found a frozen pizza, which he promptly tossed into the oven. Luhan was sorting their clothes out and trying to determine which one of them had the more ridiculous underwear; Luhan might have owned a leopard print pair, but Minseok had a pair in the wash that was silver and sparkly. He snatched them out of Luhan’s hands and clutched them to his chest.

“These are my lucky pair.”

“You have lucky underwear?”

“Yeah! Well…” He stared down at them in his hands. “They’re lucky because I usually meet someone I really like when I wear them. But the last person I met wasn’t so nice.”

“Is that the one I heard?” Luhan asked softly. Minseok just nodded, and then tossed the boxers onto his pile to free up his hands for his beer. “Well, look at it this way. We finally talked and now our cats are getting to have their romance.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” They sorted out their laundry and folded it in companionable silence. When the pizza was finally done in the oven they scarfed it down with more beer and some crazy game show Minseok had found on the TV.

After that, there really wasn’t much reason to stay. Both of them had work in the morning and needed to get to sleep, mostly to sleep off all the beer they’d killed. Minseok needed help getting his laundry and Bagheera back over to his place, so Luhan carried the cat and Minseok carried the fresh laundry. From what Luhan could see of Minseok’s apartment, it was an exact mirror of his, just much, much cleaner.

“Well, I’ll see you at work I guess.” Luhan said as way of goodbye. Minseok waved goodbye with a smile as Bagheera butted against his legs to try to escape. Luhan turned away to go to his place, knowing Raja would be on the other side of his door trying to get back to her boyfriend. What a good day off it had been.

“Hey, Luhan?” Minseok asked, head poked out of his apartment door.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to go on a date with me sometime?”

Luhan smiled. “I’d love to.”


End file.
